You know how the NSA actually gets the "content" of a phone call when under warrant?

Today our new term to learn is "Safe Harbor"

Most all companies outsource the connectivity to LEA (law enforcement agencies) to a trusted third party. Usually an MPLS VPN is established using a couple 10M or 100M circuits to the company you contract with, the trusted third party.

You can either let them directly handle the warrants and implement the tap by giving them access to your switches, OR, you have your own personnel with the proper clearance to implement the "tap" and direct the traffic over that MPLS VPN back to the trusted third party, who then send the traffic to various LEA. These companies already have the data connectivity back to places like Quantico. Google Quantico if you haven't heard that term before.

West Central Support Offers a Complete CALEA Solutions Package
West Central support provides Procera Networks PacketLogic platform, a cost effective, complete, and scalable solution that seamlessly integrates into the service provider's existing network, without the need to upgrade any network element in the network infrastructure fabric. Procera's unique value proposition is that in addition to being able to handle the Interception and Delivery of content as sanctioned by the FCC CALEA regulations, the solution also delivers the most accurate, policy-based traffic management capabilities for Broadband Service Providers (BSPs).

In addition to providing Procera Networks' PacketLogic platform as a viable CALEA solution, West Central Support provides Trusted Third Party (TTP) CALEA services. We will analyze your network to identify the optimal location for the Packet Logic platform and assist in the set up, installation, and testing of the equipment. As the TTP, West Central Support will receive the intercept request from the ISP and appropriately configure the rules in PacketLogic to meet the specifics of the intercept request as well as facilitate information delivery to the LEA and handle the appropriate paperwork and filings.

http://www.subsentio.com/SUBSENTIO — THE MARKET LEADER IN ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE SERVICES
At Subsentio, Safe Harbor is not just a provision within the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act of 1994 (CALEA), it is our business philosophy. Our mission is to provide a safe environment for service providers, their subscribers and law enforcement should a need for electronic surveillance arise. This level of trust to provide a Safe Harbor in an industry that is turbulent at best can only be delivered by personnel with decades of experience — expertise that is unmatched within this small, but vitally important, niche of telecommunications. For Subsentio, providing Safe Harbor is not a job, it is our passion.

Based in Centennial, Colorado, Subsentio’s surveillance technology connects telecommunication service providers with Federal, State and Local Law Enforcement monitoring centers to comply with lawfully authorized electronic surveillance (LAES) court orders. From national carriers to ultra-small rural providers, Subsentio is responsible for millions of subscribers with a wide range of communication services. These services are often complex, multi-vendor environments encompassing differing phases of technological approaches that require our expertise to properly perform a lawful intercept.

8. if the law allows it these enablers will store it, i dont understand your question really?

this is capitalism at its finest, these companies just sit between the providers and the national security apparatus and do the providers dirty work for them.
if the providers feel uncomfortable with this, or none of their employees wish to be involved in these programs, or cant be trusted because they dont have the right clearances, then companies like this are the answer.
i wonder how much of a revolving door there is between the agencies doing the monitoring and these companies.

10. Thanks, I understand a lot more about this now.

First of all, I forgot for a moment that database <> internet.

There are many aspects of this story that are still jumbled together but are slowly unraveling for me. This OP explains a method of data collection that occurs before the stuff gets stored in the yottabyte facility. Searches to the database would be a through a completely different method.

What this shows is that the telecoms have no plausible deniability regarding "direct access" if they just subcontract their cooperation out to a third party.

5. kick for evening session

7. So, snooper2, what I gather from your post is:

You're a techie -- whoda thunk it? But I guess your username is more significant;

You have no problem with blanket electronic surveillance under blanket warrants;

You think the NSA relies on Safe harbor provisions (which your post didn't define,
but correct me if I'm wrong) that require ISP's to cooperate with lawful eavesdropping
investigations in return for not being liable for any user content found in
the course of their investigations, be it criminal, libelious, or terrorist activity.

You disagree with Barton Gellman's continual drip drip drip of new information
from the preceding interviews with both Snowden and other intel experts who
all corroborate Snowden's information which he obtained as a low level leaker

...BECAUSE IT IS PUBLICALLY KNOWN TO EVERYONE WHO WORKS IN THE IT INDUSTRY, ESPECIALLY INTEL.

And the American people are being blamed for being kept deliberately misinformed,
knowing that the media have created a climate of ignorance, uncuriosity, conformism
(hatred of "hipsters" and "provocateurs") and anti-intellectualism that leaves even liberals
proudly proclaiming that they don't read newspapers, which if they did, they would have
read about all this sh*t years ago. But the politicians and rulers, knowing they could
rely on stupidity, deny what's in the paper unless it comes from an authoritative source.

11. So, Snowden is either lying, or just doesn't know what he's talking about.

14. or more likely neither

because the means by which the information was intercepted really doesn't matter a bit to the analyst who only cares about its source, intended audience, and information contained therein. He might or might not know how it was obtained and of course anyone can speculate on how. Maybe he was aware of how it was obtained or maybe not and he misspoke, but its really immaterial.

15. So, when Snowden said he could tap the President's phone,

Even though the program he was working on could not do that, and Obama said specifically that "Nobody Is Listening to Your Phone Calls", who do you believe? The guy sitting in China who has lied about pretty much everything, or the President?

Snowden is an attention-seeking self-aggrandizing douchebag, being promoted by Glenn Greenwald, another attention-seeking self-aggrandizing douchebag, and supported by a whole host of other attention-seeking self-aggrandizing douchebags: the "Drs" Paul, Glenn Bekk, Alex Jones, etc, etc. None of them support the De3mocratic Party or the President. The only "revaluations" they've presented are either flat-out lies or about programs which have long been known and/or suspected, and which have been through the legislative & judicial process.

If you want a debate about whether we need FISA, PRISM and other types of limited domestic surveillance the govt is involved in, fine. Or about further protections of civil liberties, fine. Or to totally throw out the Patriot Act, the FISA courts, and make gathering even metadata without a specific warrant, fine. But Ed Snowden should not be the standard-bearer of that discussion.

20. I see, so you have influence here that far outstrips the quality of your contributions

21. Wow. You really missed the point.

You threw down the gauntlet, not me, and you already know that I don't back away. But that's just an aside -- your behavior here is way out on the edge. Others have noticed. If you don't give a shit, then carry on. Surely you have other incarnations.

I'm done here. No doubt, I'll see you around; next time, make it more interesting.